


Iruka in The Tranquil Night Ocean

by Zinthezinner



Category: Love Live! School Idol Festival (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe- Merfolk, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Drowning, Gen, Mermaid!Saki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:40:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27146774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zinthezinner/pseuds/Zinthezinner
Summary: Iruka goes for a swim at night.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Iruka in The Tranquil Night Ocean

Iruka trekked past the dunes to the moonlit beach before her slowly at first. Upon confirming that no-one was around, she shrugged off her shirt, shorts, and thongs, sprinting across the cooling sand to the foam in just her one-piece bathers. She waded into the ocean, feeling the push and pull of the tide on her legs, the chill of the water seeping into her bones.   
  
Once she was deep enough in that proper swimming was viable, she took off into the waves, feeling herself rise and fall as she went over them, or feeling herself meeting resistance and bobbing back to the top after they passed when she chose to dive below them. Her eyes and nose tingled with the saltwater, but it was pleasant and refreshing rather than annoying and painful.   
  
She got far enough out that her rush died down, and she lay on her back. She felt the biting wind on the exposed parts of her figure, and she reveled in it. It was oddly calming on the body that had been so thoroughly exhausted with practice mere hours before. Her muscles relaxed naturally in the water, and she could feel the ache of exercise retreating the longer she lay there.   
  
She closed her eyes, letting them sink into the sea to give her that water-vision later where everything was blue and dreamlike, though it wasn’t as pretty at night with the already-limited visibility.   
  
Iruka thought about her home, the tones of the garden when she got out of the pool with water-vision. It was always so… tranquil. Swimming was all well and good, and certainly she enjoyed pushing herself in the water, but sometimes it was nice to just… slow down. Take in the sensations. See things just that little bit differently.   
  
Not many people understood her love of the water. She knew there were some who could hear the sound of the ocean, hear the music of it. She knew there were some who had harnessed it even, school idols like herself.   
  
She wondered what it would be like to meet them some day. Akemi and Nanaka had shown them all videos of interviews, but those could only take them so far. She wanted to get to know them all, but one had caught her eye in particular:   
  
Matsuura Kanan.   
  
The diving idol. She reminded Iruka of herself in some ways, and of who she wanted to be in others.   
  
Her senior shared Iruka’s passion for the water, her style, even her blood type. Their birthdays were only 8 days apart, too. They were very different in many ways, though. Kanan was laid-back and calm, seeming to not much care what others thought of her. She was positive, caring, and skilled. Meanwhile Iruka was excitable, and she wasn’t great with criticism. She wasn’t negative per se, but she worried a lot. Not the most empathetic either, and she wasn’t nearly as good a school idol or student as Kanan.   
  
It was… depressing.   
  
Thinking back to what had prompted her intense workout from a few hours ago, Iruka frowned. Reine had called her out before that, saying that she wasn’t focusing enough on her idol work. Saying that she wasn’t even focusing on the ‘school’ part of ‘school idol’ with how much she slept in class. Asking her what she was even doing there. Nagi and Yuu had tried to calm her down, but the other four couldn’t really argue with her. She had a point, after all.   
  
…   
  
Iruka didn’t like these thoughts. She brought her wet hands to her face, slapping her cheeks lightly to try and shake them out, but it didn’t work.   
  
She flipped onto her stomach and started swimming butterfly. Arms out front, little kick, pull them back, bigger kick as they leave the water, breathe, arms out front, rinse, repeat. The ache returned with the strain, pulling at the muscles of her shoulders, thighs, and calves as well as everywhere else. That didn’t much matter, though. Soon she would reach the point where the feelings of fatigue melted away. Continuing would rid her of those thoughts, calm her.   
  
“Keep swimming!” came a voice from below.   
  
Iruka opened her eyes and flailed to a stop in surprise. She treaded water, looking for a source. Finding none above-water, she dipped her head under.   
  
“Keep swimming! You’re doing great!”   
  
There was a light down there, glowing invitingly in the inky blackness. Of course, anglerfish were far deeper down than this, and their luminescence far less powerful, so it had to be something else. But… what?   
  
“Gooo swimmer, you’re so good at this! Gooo swimmer, you swim just like a fish!”   
  
Well! Can’t argue with that! She was going to continue anyway.   
  
Iruka began her stroke again, shakily at first but soon getting into the swing of it.   
  
Eventually she was joined by a humanoid beneath her, nearly matching her movements with oversized bioluminescent anemones in webbed hands. Even with the gills and fins, the creature looked almost human. It had short, brown-blonde hair decorated with what must be a seaweed headband. Its face was bony and small, with slightly oversized brown eyes. It kept cheering her on the whole while.   
  
On one stroke, the merperson started sinking, beckoning Iruka to follow it. Its tail shone with the light reflected from the anemones as it dropped steadily.   
  
With one deep breath, Iruka followed. She dove down, kicking hard. Keeping her eyes on the makeshift pom-poms was somewhat difficult, but she couldn’t give up. She was utterly mesmerised, and the merperson was so tantalisingly close…    
  
It wasn’t clear how deep she had gotten, but eventually Iruka realised that the merperson was too far. She couldn’t hold her breath long enough to both catch up and resurface, and she wasn’t sure she had enough to resurface. Everything felt heavy, her muscles were screaming at her, and pearls of air had begun escaping her lips and nostrils.   
  
She tried to push her way back to the surface as quickly as she could, but her body had started to panic. It was thrashing, her mouth was opening involuntarily and letting streams of bubbles out to float gently above her to the top. A stray thought was of merfolk, of how they supposedly rescued drowning sailors. Another stray thought was of merfolk who supposedly intentionally drowned sailors to eat them.   
  
As she blacked out, she wondered what kind this one was.

**Author's Note:**

> GOD I want to go swimming again. I love the water, does it show?


End file.
